User:0x517A5D

Build

I obsessively min-max my starting profile, even though it doesn't matter in the long run.

My usual build is a defender/mayor, three fort-maintainers, two wealth-creators, and a dealer's-choice.

This time I went with mason and weaponsmith for the dealer's choice. I did this because my self-imposed rules this time allow for stone furniture.

This was a no-anvil build, so it is resource-heavy.

• 5 ambusher / 2 negotiator / 1 judge of intent / 1 appraiser / 1 pacifier
• 5 grower / 5 brewer
• 5 grower / 5 cook
• 5 mechanic / 5 herbalist
• 5 metalcrafter / 5 furnace operator
• 5 carpenter / 5 glassmaker
• 5 mason / 5 weaponsmith

• 4 copper picks
• 1 steel axe
• 0 anvils
• 20 plump helmet spawn
• 20 pig tail seeds
• 1 each of other seeds/spawn (for bags)
• 11 each of the 4 dwarven alcohols
• 1 plump helmet (for the barrel)
• 20 turtles (allowed to rot for bones & shells)
• 1 each of all 2P/4P/6P meat/fish (for barrels)
• 50 bituminous coal (-> coke -> smelting and forging)
• 10 native silver (for wealth creation)
• 0 bauxite (see trap rules below)
• 20 pieces 5P leather, assorted (-> bags, 2 reserved for moods)
• 1 pig tail cloth (reserved for moods)
• 1 silk cloth (reserved for moods)
• 4 dogs
• as many logs as possible, around 75.

The rules this time:

• No moat-the-map or wall-the-map.
• No aboveground stonefall traps.
• Non-stonefall traps only in constructed or excavated & smoothed areas. Traps in dirt areas must have a stone floor built on that tile.
• Metal mechanisms (modded in) for all non-stonefall traps, all gears, all machines.
• All furniture to be made of wood, metal, or glass.
• All structures to be built with blocks.
• All construction to be done with blocks. (maybe.)
• Furnaces must be made out of fire-safe material; magma furnaces and magma pumps must be made out of magma-safe material.
• No non-armor clothing. (Modded out.)
• Aquifers modded out.
• GRASSTRAMPLE cut to 1 for civilized and domestic species.
• Flours and sugar modded out.
• Pig iron -> steel reaction does not require coke. (Modded.)

Depending on the map, the defender/mayor either becomes a soldier or a miner. (He starts with a free crossbow and bolts because of the ambusher skill.) Either way, turn off hunting. If he's a soldier, someone else trains the dogs and then assigns 2 to him and 2 to the herbalist.

The metalcrafter mines or refines coal & smelts metal.

The mechanic/herbalist makes some high-value mechanisms, then gathers plants if the map is safe enough, or mines.

The carpenter/glassmaker makes 4 tables and chairs, and a few beds. 2 tables and chairs are made into offices for the bookkeeper and manager, 2 more are made into a dining room. As I am allowing stone furniture this game, the carpenter will only make beds.

The two growers farm, cook, and brew.

The dealer's choice dwarf probably mines.

Depending on the map, they may dig out large areas of soil to level up. Digging soil is much faster than digging rock and gives the same experience. This is best done in two or three stages: dig up-stairs, then remove them, then possibly dig down-stairs. This gives experience twice or three times per tile.

I like to get immigrants as soon as possible, and as many as possible. I do this by digging out large swaths of dirt and by making mechanisms out of expensive ore to increase the fortress's created wealth. (The 30x multiplier on mechanisms may be seen as a bug exploit; you may wish to make 25x statues instead.)

Immediately forbid the bauxite so it is not used by workshops. Reclaim it later to build the floodgates and mechanisms. (See this game's trap rules above.)

Immediately set reserved barrels to 20 or so. You want those barrels for booze.

Start cooking all that food. Don't cook the turtles, dump them somewhere underground to rot. Cook all of the other fish, unless you expect to need the bones for ammo. Forbid the booze barrels that are totally full; cook the rest of the booze. Cook the seeds to recover their bags.

Later, you must remember to turn off booze cooking and reclaim the full booze barrels.

Still later, when you buy fish and seeds from the traders, you must remember to turn off cooking on each type.

Customize food piles to not accept booze, seeds, or dye plants. Booze barrels can stay in the still -- they hardly clutter it at all (unlike, say, prepared meals in the kitchen). It's too early for dyeing, so we don't want to waste the space. And a seedpile is best made near your farm.

Also set food piles to 0 barrels, except the seedpile should allow 1. This means you need more space devoted to food piles, but you can see at a glance how much food you have. (Note: supposedly you will lose more food to vermin this way.) (Now I think this should be done only for the prepared-food pile.)

Dig cisterns to hold pond water in case it evaporates. (Not necessary if the map is cold or has running water.) The cisterns must be in a rock layer to prevent evaporation.

Make an indoor refuse pile that only accepts shells and bones, so that you don't lose the turtle shells. If you have an outdoor refuse pile, set the indoor one to take from the outdoor one.

The outdoor refuse pile should be customized to not accept rotten plants because the herbalists will be dropping dye plants as soon as they pick them, and we don't want to waste time hauling them when they wither.

I make heavy use of the "quantum stockpiles" that the dump designation and garbage zone allows. It allows much more control over item placement and disposition than stockpiles do.

Think big, there's lots of room. But remember to centralize as well.

Vertical connectivity is king. An up/down staircase takes no longer to dig than an empty square, and has much more potential. You can't put a building on an up/down, but you can put a stockpile or zone on it.

Make magma channels two-wide or more for faster filling, or use a pump to get it done even faster.

Siege Checklist

• Turn off the Mechanic skill on all dwarves.

This stops reloading of cage traps and stone traps.

This is not necessary if all traps are forbidden, as discussed below.

• Turn off animal gathering oa.

This prevents gathering of occupied cages.

This is not necessary if all traps are forbidden, as discussed below.

• Turn off wood gathering ow.
• Turn off collect outside refuse oro.
• Turn on all Forbid orders oFpcoit.
• Consider turning on only soldiers can go outdoors oi.
• Lock someone in the lever room. (You do have a lever room, right?)

Draft them, station them, relieve them of duty.

Probably should use two dwarves in case one goes to sleep.

• Forbid all traps dbf before enemies trigger them.

This prevents clean trap and reset trap jobs and gathering of occupied cages.

Post-Siege Checklist

• Ensure that enemies have left the map. unit list, between tame animals and deceased units.
• Bring some or all squads off-duty.
• Turn on Mechanic on Mechanic units and possibly some legendary units.
• Turn on animal gathering.
• Turn on wood gathering.
• Re-set Forbid orders.
• Allow all dwarves to go outdoors.
• Unlock the lever room.
• Reclaim all dead bodies through stocks menu.
• Reclaim all trap components through stocks menu.
• Wait for bodies to be hauled to refuse piles and graveyards.
• Mass-mark enemy equipment for melting dbm.

Alternatively mark all equipment for dumping dbd, then re-mark for melting dbm, which removes the dump tag. This results in dumping all non-metal items; the metal ones can then be hauled to weapon/armor piles near the smelters.

• Unmark trap components for dumping and/or melting through stocks menu.
• Reclaim the enemy equipment dbc.
• (Unknown)
• Profit!

Regional Prospector

The seekret projekt has been revealed to be Regional Prospector.

The original functionality of RP has been rolled into DF, but the magma highlighting and longitude/latitude/seed display has not. I am considering updating RP, and probably will.

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Stone Sense

Stone Sense Beta 4

Download Stone Sense beta 4

Stone Sense is a utility for Dwarf Fortress that adds a sort of radar to miners, so that they can detect what is inside the rock near the location where they are digging.

It is currently VERY overpowered as it reveals 289 squares (17x17) instead of the normal 9 squares (3x3). Future plans include basing the amount revealed on the skill of the miner.

To use it, first start Dwarf Fortress. Then run stone_sense.exe. Finally, go to the bottommost level and mark the whole level for digging, then unmark it. That forces all map blocks to be populated with valid data. (Nothing bad happens if you don't, but map squares in unallocated map blocks aren't revealed.)

One commandline parameter is supported: the radius to use. Values can range from 1 (Dwarf Fortress's default) to 125. Example: stone_sense.exe 10

The utility does not need to be in the same directory as Dwarf Fortress.

Note: this utility patches the in-memory copy of Dwarf Fortress, not the program file. Accordingly, you will need to run it every time you start Dwarf Fortress.

Should work with .32a through .40d and beyond. Beta 4 now works with the .40d# testing releases.

Known bugs:

Unallocated parts of the map are not revealed. To work around this, do the same thing that Reveal requires: go to the bottommost level that you care about and designate the whole thing for digging, then remove the designation. [WONTFIX].

I have encountered one unexpected occurrence: a section of the map was revealed as if I had dug it out, but I had nothing marked there and no dwarves near it. The reveal was centered on a pool, and when I looked, there was a fox about three squares away. I think the fox went for a short swim, and this triggered the function I call reveal_mining(). [WONTFIX, probably]

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German Menu

Download German Menu beta1

Reveal2

I have updated Rick/Gibbed's Reveal utility to work with Vista and Windows 7. In addition, it should be able to work with all versions of Dwarf Fortress without the need to edit an .INI file. It is on the DFFD at Reveal2.